Pampa is hit hard by last night's storm

Pampa, TX - Even though we still need rain, Pampa residents spent their day cleaning up the mess that came along with the rain.

Pampa resident Eddie Reams's shed was blown down during last night's storm, damaging two of his vehicles.

"It was pretty good damage. Both hoods on my car got tore up," said Ream.

And he isn't the only one with damage. Director of Public Works for the City of Pampa,Donny Hooper says most of the city was covered in wreckage left by the storm.

"We've seen a ton tree limbs that are down, a lot of power lines, and then some damage to roofs from commercial buildings and residential buildings, so it's really wide spread throughout the entire community," said Hooper.

The damage was caused by 93 miles an hour straight line winds. Chief Meteorologist "Doppler" Dave Oliver says straight line winds can do the same damage as a tornado. "With straight line winds it's usually the out flow where the air is coming down. It's hitting and spreading out ahead of the storm and we can get some pretty violent burst of straight wind," said Oliver.

And according to Xcel Energy, the wind got so bad, it left over a thousand people without power."Power outages have been throughout the night. In fact some of the power is still out in some locations. Xcel has been working extremely hard, and they've done a great job to try and stay on top of all that," said Hooper.

But along with Xcel, the city is working as fast as they can to get Pampa back to normal. "We're starting our first push today. We actually started it over night last night. And that means going through and moving all the hazards out of the roadway," said Hooper.

The residents are also responsible for cleaning any hazardous debris from their yards, but the city is making it easy for them. "We have waived the fee that our landfill for our city residents to bring in that debris and give them an opportunity to take that in and not be charged for it," said Hooper.

Right now Xcel Energy tells us 14-16 power poles need to be replaced in Pampa and some of the surrounding rural areas. However, the number of poles needing to replaced may go up as they continue to assess the damage.